Continuing the book study with Danielson's book, "Enhancing Professional Practice: A framework for teaching" 2nd ed.
Our
21st Century policy makers have come to the conclusion that the
traditional view of learning, focused on knowledge and procedures of low
cognitive challenge and the regurgitation (love that word) of
superficial understanding, does not constitute learning that will be
productive or effective in our global society.
Students of the
21st Century must be able to solve complex problems, design more
efficient techniques to accomplish work, make informed choices at the
ballot boxes, and discharge the complex responsibilities as a juror.
Basic information and knowledge is important, but deep conceptual
understanding is needed. The skill of evaluating arguments, analyzing
information, and drawing conclusions is critical for survival.
Students
(ALL STUDENTS) must be able to acquire deep and flexible understanding
of complex content, formulate and test hypotheses, analyze information,
and relate one part of learning to another. In order for this to take
place, teachers themselves must possess these same skills. They must
have a deep and flexible understanding of content in order to move their
students from memorization to analysis and interpretation. High-level
learning by students DEMANDS high-level instruction by teachers.
WOW!
That is a mouthful on the first 2 pages of Chapter 2. (To borrow from
my religious upbringing - I could stop here and preach a while!)
Since
the formation of NCLB, and perhaps even further back, we have been
teaching students to pass assessments. We provide them with the tricks
of the trade to pass a few more items on their exams. We teach them
clues to help them get correct answers, but do they know one thing about
what we have just done to beat the assessment system? (And as the
little lady in the new Madea Play would say, "Shut your mouth, and keep
on talking, Girl!" ) I understand what we do. I understand why we do
it. But I don't agree with it one bit.
I recently made a friend
at the Moline airport. His name was Mason. He was only 18 months old.
For some reason, Mason wanted to communicate with me, even though his
aunt and his mom tried to get him to stop. Every couple of minutes
Mason would run away from his mom or aunt and run to where I was sitting
in a little coffee shop. He would stand on the other side of the
little roped barrier, and do things to get my attention (like slapping
the cording on the barrier). He was the cutest thing. I even went and
bought him a soft football in the gift shop. He loved it. I had a
friend for the rest of the time I was sitting in the airport. My point
is, Mason wanted to explore. He wanted to understand his surroundings,
and yet his mom and aunt kept saying to him, "No, Mason." "Mason, don't
do that." "Mason, come back here." Oh Mason understood those commands,
but there was so much more Mason could have learned that day if he
didn't have so many limitations.
I, PERSONALLY, think we put too
many limitations on kids. We are so scared they are not going to score
what we want them to score on a high stakes assessments, that we LIMIT
their learning. We say things like, "Do the math problem this way.
Don't change it. Follow the rules. Don't think about. Just look at the
picture and remember what we told you. Look for a clue in the question
to help you with the answer." Gosh, I wished for just once someone
would give kids a proverbial football and say, "Here, go explore! See
what you can learn." For you see, Mason realized the football made a
really cool sound when he slammed it against the tiled floor of the
airport, but it didn't make a cool sound on the carpet. So guess where
Mason kept heading with his football? You got it! The tiled floor it
is. Give our kids an opportunity to LEARN and EXPLORE not simply
REGURGITATE!
And that's my 2 cents.
Sarah
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